


Not Now, Not Then

by Phia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e01 The Six Thatchers, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 02:33:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9153835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phia/pseuds/Phia
Summary: Six scenes in honor of "The Six Thatchers" and sobbing over Johnlock.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Might've gotten some facts wrong. I don't remember everything.  
> I hope you enjoy reading this! Thank you for reading, if you decide to stay.

Rosie does not possess the capability to hurt him.   

The rattle Sherlock takes to the face is a bit startling, enough to knock instructions back into him. Words rushed through a mobile or tossed over a shoulder while tying shoes. “She does that, sometimes. And if she’s crying, it’ll be because she’s dirty or hungry. Or bored.” A laugh. “Reminds me of you,  really.”

It doesn’t matter if the words are from Mary or John. They’ve become the same mass to him, floral patterned and with the occasional touches of pink. A circling of arms, dozing on the sofa, a jacket crinkling when someone turns. Domestic, smelling of milk and kitchen sunlight, the stench of gunpowder running underneath.

They're not awake when they talk to him, eyes always blinking away sleep or the desire for it. Sherlock remembers John before the band on his finger, and he understands.

He tries to leave those thoughts in another room. Rosie looks at her own fingers, flexes them in front of her face. She doesn’t need to be in the same room with any of that.

He picks the rattle off the floor. He knows better.  

 

* * *

 

He decides to do it because he knows what’s going to happen. Like before the tarmac, like before the fall. Midnight, sitting up on the home you've made of a dirtied mattress.

It could feel the same way. He puts the paper to his face and inhales. He mumbles something but it’s hard to remember what it is. But he is falling and Mary is catching him. Except she isn’t, because no one does.

He knows that the ground doesn’t even want him. The pavement gives under him, the fictional crack of his fictional skull. John’s fingers scrabble at his wrists, but everyone says: there has to be a _back away_.   

He knows that phrase. He's been both best man and best friend. He knows how to inhale and slip into something a little more comfortable. 

Redbeard is always a welcome sight.

 

* * *

 

She is a bit strange, tearing from the scene in a flurry of scattered limbs. There’s the smile on her face, hidden behind all that hair. 

Too much of it, brown like a dirtied waterfall. John still holds the scrap of paper in his hand. He isn’t throwing it into the wind or dropping it into the nearest bin. It doesn’t take a detective.

He doesn’t even _care_ , is the thing that makes Sherlock grit teeth. He doesn’t care, brushing the flower tucked behind his ear. John does not care and he didn’t turn to Sherlock, didn’t slink into 221B one night. A slab of stone sitting on his tongue, flesh fighting to get it off. Slow steps in a circle over the pavement before making their way over to the door.

Of course. Sherlock holds the knife handle, loose in the cage of his fingers. He almost tugs the knife away from the mantle. He could pull the blade from the wood.

He brings his arm back to his side and runs his gaze over his reflection. 

Blue-grey eyes and dark hair, lighter when touched by sunlight. 

It doesn’t take a detective. But he needs to stop telling himself things like that.

 

* * *

 

And it makes Sherlock want to split the surface of the water. To stay under for a little longer, closing eyes to the blurred image of whatever lays above.

The girl is strange, a bitten lip on the bus, sitting in the aisle so no one sits beside her.  

What’s more dangerous than laying in the bed you share with your wife, texting someone else into night? What’s more dangerous than the heaviness in your fingers when you press down on the screen? And saying less than you mean, always saying less.  

Sherlock can read it on John more. The glances at Mary, the pacing and picking his head up at the slightest bit of noise.

“I have a vow.” Sherlock's words, spat down or said slow to reassure. What he doesn’t say is, _Why should I keep mine, when you haven’t kept yours?_

 

* * *

  

Promises are romantic fancy. Even with a finger on the trigger, someone might not shoot. You can listen for the waver in someone’s voice, watch the fist shake around the gun. Notice the wine stain pressed to an upper lip.

He doesn’t watch when they bring the girl to water. He listens for the name: Rosamund, and Rosie for short. Rose of the world. Reminds him of traded whispers, coins pushed across the wooden avenue of a table. Petals scattered across a path. He hopes that no one steps on them.

They drop the water over her, and he doesn’t watch because it is all romantic fancy. Like “godfather” and “best man.” He turns his face up to the anointment, lets the oil touch him, slip down his face in a line. They are good words but they are always a step behind. When you back away, you stay to be the _in case_. If something happens, you wait in the hospital wing, feet split between hospital tiles.

That’s what “E” is. A shared glance, sliding between the bodies of bus passengers. Looking into the window and seeing what's been tucked behind your ear the entire time.

Sherlock doesn’t want something to happen. He has a vow and he wants to keep it for as long as he can. _Someone_ has to keep their promise.

His phone, the work, weighs down on his fingers. The priest christens Rosamund. Sherlock doesn’t believe in a god, but in that moment, he wants to give her one. 

  

* * *

 

Work distracts from the sorrow. The buzzing of the phone fights with the buzzing of the mind. The hand pressed over a body no longer destined for anything.

There are piles of papers and none of them mean anything.  

He feels Mrs. Hudson hover over his shoulder, and of course he doesn’t mind. He’s in a flat with a balloon, the string that he’s pinned down with a book.

He misses Rosie’s warmth, fist curled around one of his fingers. The girl in every world but his own. 

The video plays, Mary splayed over the screen of Sherlock's laptop. John's wife, with the lines around her eyes and the wind blowing. She'd fled, but leaving it all to Rosie and John. Her name, the body, clothes smelling of tea and flame.

This is her face, but without the need to smile for a picture.

“Go to Hell, Sherlock.”

John's wife, you think she would've known better, being so close to the two of them. Sherlock smiles at someone who no one believes will ever smile again.

_Oh_ , _but I’m already there_.


End file.
